


At the Diner

by wheel_pen



Series: Darkwood Eastport [1]
Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fish out of Water, Polygamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Local teen Mike Newton has a snack at a Darkwood-run diner and reflects on the town’s new residents. He interacts with two Alices—one Black Swan, one Orange Light—and also Dr. Orange Light, Alice’s unnerving father. Not the first story chronologically, but a good introduction. Chapter 2 is a timeline for all the stories in the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe. I’ve given a lot of thought to the Darkwood culture, so if something seems confusing, feel free to ask. I hope you enjoy!

Mike Newton pushed through the door of the restaurant, listening to the bell above him jangle cheerfully. The little diner smelled delicious, like cinnamon and salt, and its warmth made him realize it’d been just a tad chilly outside—summer was fading fast. Mike climbed onto one of the stools at the counter and set his bookbag at his feet, glancing idly at the list of specials. The diner was quiet—at four o’clock it was a little early for the dinner crowd, and not many of Mike’s fellow high schoolers had gotten into the habit of hanging out here after school—yet, anyway. He’d started walking across the street for lunch here during the summer, while working fulltime at his dad’s fishing supply store, and he supposed he felt more comfortable here than _some_ of the locals.

A pretty, pixie-like figure appeared before him, with an impossibly huge smile that Mike couldn’t help but return. “Hello, Mike!” the waitress greeted cheerily. “What can I get you today?”

“Um, a Coke, and… a piece of chocolate pie?” he decided. Delicious _and_ nutritious for an after school snack. “Is the chocolate pie new?”

“Jasper is just trying it out today!” Alice informed him. She seemed to speak mostly in exclamation points. “But I’ve had it at home and it’s _very_ good!”

Mike had no doubt of that—the food he’d eaten in this place so far had been uniformly above average, even for a guy with a not-so-discriminating palate. Alice bounced off to fill his order and he turned on the stool to look around. Any late-season tourists that were dining there were probably outside, on the deck overlooking the bay. It was the locals, who saw the bay morning, noon, and night four seasons a year, who sat indoors amid the cool, clean blue-and-white décor. He thought there were a few more than when he was in at the same time a couple days ago, which he felt cautiously pleased about. The place had opened in early May, shortly after the families that ran it moved to town, and as usual the tight-knit community had wondered if these outsiders were just around to soak up some summer tourist dollars, planning to abscond south after Labor Day. They’d said they weren’t, and Mike wanted to believe them—not only was the food great and reasonably priced, it was also served by interesting people, and in a town of just fifteen hundred or so, Mike hungered for interesting people.

And you just didn’t get more interesting than the Darkwood clans, not around here anyway.

Mike had heard about them, vaguely—the ones out in California. The girls in his social circle knew way more about them than he did, because they weren’t sports stars or action movie heroes (or scantily clad swimsuit models), just incredibly rich people who wore fancy clothes and held a lot of charity fundraisers. Oh, and they were polygamists with tons of kids. Minor detail there.

So when the news broke that several families—clans, they called themselves—were moving to tiny Eastport (“the easternmost city in the US!”) from their homeland in Europe, there was a considerable amount of excitement, not all of it positive. Some of the men had started showing up over a year ago, looking at houses and land and vacant storefronts, talking about the businesses they wanted to start and the quiet life they wanted to live—mostly to the camera crews from local news stations who kept following them around. Some of the citizens objected—it was too much publicity, too many people, too much weirdness. But Mike had a feeling—actually, his _dad_ had a feeling, because Mike wasn’t really into these political things at all—that a fair bit of money had changed hands, for real estate and permits and local workers updating and expanding houses and supplies and so forth, and most objecting voices had quieted right down. Nobody knew where the Darkwood clans got their money, but it flowed freely, and who wouldn’t want to get a piece of it?

Assuming they were _really_ here to stay, of course. Mike had heard that wherever they came from had ‘perfect’ weather all the time—like southern California, maybe. Well, Eastport, Maine was no SoCal. When it got cold—as it would soon—it got _very_ cold, with rain and fog followed by ice and snow. That was the true test of a person’s residency, really. Mike had seen a number of people break after just one winter and flee south or west, returning only in April or May for the summer season.

But he was really hoping the Darkwood clans were different. There were six of them, though he understood that some were related, and they had all bought parcels of land on the island with large homes. A bunch of them were doctors and had opened a clinic in town, the nearest such facility for thirty or forty miles. Mike had heard that they wanted it to grow into a real hospital—apparently the other clans had one out in Los Angeles. His mom was a nurse and in his opinion it would be great if she could work in town and not have to commute thirty-seven miles to Calais, and back, every day. Granted, she usually took the train, which took longer than driving but wasn’t as weather-dependent. Still—rain and fog, ice and snow, remember? Traveling even that far could be hazardous for several months of the year. And the clinic was supposed to be nice so far—it had attracted medical people from other towns to commute in for work, and they’d been offering specials all summer, like free physicals for senior citizens or incoming freshmen at the local high school. Another clan owned the diner, and a third had taken over the grocery store when the Freemonds finally retired. Mike had heard that one group was mainly artists, too.

Unfortunately, at least from Mike’s point of view, the Darkwood kids were all homeschooled—he’d heard that a large group of teenagers, over a dozen, were taking Drivers’ Ed at the local high school, but since he already had his license he’d only glimpsed them briefly in the halls so far. There had to be a good ten or twelve that were about his age—it seemed that everyone eighteen and up had been left behind in their homeland for whatever reason, though. He’d seen a few of them out around town during the summer, of course, but between work, the summer school his mom made him do, and the influx of tourists, he hadn’t really spent much time with them. He’d seen groups of them at town festivals, but they seemed a little shy at the moment, not really talking to anyone but each other. It was quite difficult to get any of them alone, that was for sure—like any seventeen-year-old guy wanted to brave a whole _group_ of strangers just to ask one girl if she’d like a snow cone, you know?

Although, most of the girls he’d seen so far might be worth risking abject humiliation for—they seemed to come in every type in the book, except plain. There were cute girls-next-door, glamorous model types, athletic-looking ones, even a few exotic and mysterious types that he guessed were among the adopted. In fact, _all_ the Darkwood people seemed to be pretty good-looking—he’d seen way more hot mamas since they moved in, that was for sure, and his mom and little sister seemed nauseatingly taken with some of the men and younger guys.

Mike was halfway through his piece of chocolate pie by now, and Jasper hadn’t disappointed him. Jasper and Alice, the waitress, belonged to the clan that ran the diner—Black Swan, one of the artsier names of the clans here. Rosalie, who usually ran the cash register, was another one, and so was Emmett, who cooked a lot of the food. Bella was another wife—she seemed rather shy and awkward where she huddled at her corner table, keeping the books and munching on vegetables. Mike knew there was yet another man, Edward, who seemed to spend a lot of time running errands around town. Now, a clan with one man and a bunch of wives, Mike could understand; but a clan with three wives _and_ three husbands? He preferred not to think about the implications of that, frankly.

The bell above the door jingled again and Mike turned to see who had entered. It was a pretty teenage girl whom Mike knew slightly, mostly because she worked part-time as a waitress at the diner. She smiled at him and he took the opportunity to greet her. “Hi, Alice!” Yes, her name was _also_ Alice; he wondered if that was common among the Darkwood people.

“Hi, Mike!” she replied cheerfully. “Is that the chocolate pie? It looks great.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s really good,” Mike assured her intelligently. Well, it was a bit difficult to think when a certain girl’s father was standing behind her, looking at Mike suspiciously over her shoulder.

Alice went off to start her shift and her father—Dr. Orange Light—went over to Bella Black Swan’s table and greeted her with a bow. The Darkwood people did a lot of bowing, Mike had noticed, but some people got more elaborate treatment than others—Dr. Orange Light went well out of his way to acknowledge Bella Black Swan, even though she was clearly uncomfortable with the attention. Then he settled himself on a stool a couple down from Mike, ordering from Alice Black Swan in their impenetrable native language. It sounded like Swedish or Russian or something to Mike. _This_ Black Swan woman only got a polite head nod in greeting. Dr. Orange Light worked at the Darkwood Clinic, but he wasn’t exactly a medical doctor—he was a psychologist. He had two wives and one husband, and they were _all_ psychologists. Mike wasn’t sure which aspect he found more unsettling. Dr. Orange Light also had a peculiar way of looking at people, Mike thought, like he was peeling them away layer by layer. It almost made Mike wish Alice were the daughter of someone else, like Dr. White Stag, who always seemed so friendly.

“Mike, isn’t it?” Dr. Orange Light said suddenly. He had an accent that sounded almost British, although most of the others didn’t talk that way. “Nice dinner. Here.” The man slid a couple of napkins towards Mike, who took them with bemusement. The doctor was watching him expectantly, so Mike quickly rubbed a napkin across his face—and it came back smudged in brown. Great, he’d been sitting in the diner—and talking to both Alices!—with chocolate smeared all over his face. _Smooth, man, very smooth_.

“Uh, thanks,” he managed to mumble, and the man turned back to his meal that had just arrived. Mike felt better, slightly, when he heard Alice hiss something chastising at her father. Well, it was nice to know that some ‘dad’ traits were universal, anyway.


	2. Timeline of All Stories

** Timeline of All Stories **

_Pre-Eastport_

Connection

A Walk in the Woods

The Boat

Revolutionary

_Eastport_

The Sneeze

Farmers’ Market

Blue Raspberry

Baby Talk

Fourth of July

Dog Days

At the Diner

Penelope

The Fall

The Night Kitchen

The Favorite

Winter is Coming

Snow Day

Winter Night

First Christmas

Purple Princess

The New Baby

Prom Night

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Luau

Herdaya

School Schedule

The Accident

A Long Three Years

Marriage Prep


End file.
